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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Mudhi Muaa

My mom never fails to amaze me. Whenever I call her regarding a recipe, she has all the answers to my questions. Even when I am least expecting it. Agreed that she does not make Chinese or Italian, but Indian cooking is her forte. She is the kind who had her basics very strong and I believe that such people hardly take any time to adapt to any kind of cuisine. Wish I had learnt more Odiya recipe from her during my school/college days.

Yesterday when I was feeling a bit down, I was reminded of my childhood days which would never be the same without stuff like arissa pitha, gajaa, nimika, muduku and various types of muaa. Since I had the basics in stock, I decided to prepare some mudhi muaa for myself. While I had seen her preparing 'Muaa' a long time back, I did not remember the steps. So I called her and asked "How many cups 'Mudhi' for 1 cup 'guda'? . As expected, she replied 'seita tote kemiti kahibi. Andaziya kari ne'. Huuh, these ladies are some experts. They use their eyes and hands as some kinda weighing machine while I am totally lost without my measuring spoons and cups. Somehow we decided that 1 part jaggery would be fine for 5-6 parts puffed rice and hence I set about the cooking. By force of habit, I ended up making modifications to the original recipe and used a few other ingredients keeping the sensibilities of my toddler and his friends in mind ( you know how most kids are these days ). Turned out to be easy given her tips and made a nice batch of muaas which are going to get over very soon. Maybe even before this post goes live.

Cooking - Heat the jaggery with 1/3 cup water in a wok. It will melt and then start to foam/bubble. Gradually ( arnd 3-4 mins) the bubbles will get smaller and now it is time to test for the right consistency of the jaggery. If it gets over-cooked then the puffed rice will not bind together.

Take a large bowl with cold water in it. Put a single drop of the jaggery into it. If it dissolves into the water, it needs to be cooked for longer time. Keep repeating this test at intervals of 1 minute.